UAE coach suspended after Pakistan captain alleges spot fixing offer

Karachi: United Arab Emirates-based coach Irfan Ansari was suspended following allegations from Pakistan’s captain Sarfraz Ahmed that he was approached to participate in a spot fixing scheme, Cricket’s administrative body said on Thursday.The International Cricket Council (ICC) said Ansari was charged with three counts of breaching the body’s anti-corruption code.“Ansari has been provisionally suspended with immediate effect and has been charged for directly soliciting, inducing, enticing or encouraging a participant to breach the code and for failure or refusal to cooperate with the anti-corruption unit’s investigation,” said an ICC release.Ansari, who is originally from Pakistan, has coached a number of small professional clubs in the UAE for years.The ICC said the suspension comes after Ansari failed to provide requested information to group’s anti-corruption wing on two separate occasions.The charges centre on Sarfraz’s admission to the Pakistan Cricket Board and the ICC that Ansari had approached him about spot fixing during the one-day series between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the UAE last October.Spot-fixing involves determining the outcome of a specific part of a match rather than the overall result, and is therefore harder to detect than match-fixing.Ansari will now have two weeks to respond to the charges.“The ICC will not make any further comment in respect of these charges at this stage,” said the body in a statement.The PCB took extra measures to stem spot-fixing, with all six teams in this year’s league monitored by anti-corruption officers.Pakistan has a history of fixing cases, the latest being last year’s scandal which rocked the Pakistan Super League held in UAE.A spot-fixing case during Pakistan’s tour of England in 2010 ended in five-year bans on then Test captain Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir.Pakistan leg-spinner Danish Kaneria is also serving a life ban on charges of spot-fixing during a county match in England in 2009. — AFP